I'm curious if there's a comprehensive list out there of what's changed... particularly gameplay stuff, since they graphics and musical changes are obvious and much-discussed already. A quick Google search led me to this, but it already leaves out a number of important changes I've noticed in the ten or so hours I've put into it so far.

Here are some important gameplay things that are a little different:

• Crystal lizard spawns are no longer "used up" if they disappear before you kill them. Maybe some people liked the harsher way it was before, but for me, this was a relief to discover. Not clear if a spawn is used if the lizard suicides off a cliff.
• If you hit your max item burden, the game will allow you to continue to pick things up and simply send them straight to storage.
• You can only carry up to 50 of each "weak" healing and 10 of each "strong" healing item so that healing isn't quite as unlimited as previously. And I believe the weight of the stronger healing items has been increased, as well, so that item burden becomes a factor for people who want to hoard heals.
• To get the fat official to lower the stairs so you can save Yuria, you now need to the whole set of official's armor instead of just the cap. The pieces seem be divided between 2-1 and world 1.

All of these seem like pretty good changes to me (I mean, the full official set is slightly more onerous a requirement, but it's a one-time thing and it makes a little more sense that the guy gets fooled by a full outfit rather than just a hat).

Enjoying myself so far. It's harder than I remember, even after playing Dark Souls Remaster again recently, but maybe I just need to get my Blueblood Sword and level up a little bit.

Ah, makes sense about the heals. Went to Estus and never really went back.

It's not just a limit on healing but they also weigh more so you can't hoard as much.

Maybe this is just a me thing but timing on parrying is way easier with the game basically locked at 60fps

You can hold 25 of the two yellow grasses, so there really isn't much of a restriction on healing at all. I don't know what you're doing if you're needing to heal that much between archstones.

The only other real difference you didn't mention is (slight mechanical spoilers for added content in the PS5 version, I guess?) the Ceramic Coins from Fractured Mode, where you play the game mirrored. Trading 26 of the coins to Sparkly gives you a key to get the new Penetrator armor set.

I've seen footage of the Tower Knight and I keep wondering, did they change the ankle phase of that fight? It feels like it takes longer to trigger his fall. Maybe the people I'm watching are attacking the same ankle but it looks like it takes more work.

Oh, one other nice quality-of-life feature I noticed. I'd previously mentioned that when picking up an item would put you over the weight limit, the game will automatically prompt you to send it straight to storage. Well, you can actually send any item straight to storage at any time from your inventory. Very convenient, I like it!

I don't think that's the case? I fought him and it didn't seem to take any longer to me. And Bluepoint literally started with the same original code base, so unless they actually went out of their way to tweak the values, I doubt it.

I am surprised, however, how much harder the game generally is than how I'd remembered it. I've been far more likely to die against trash mobs in this game so far than the other Souls games. And some of those black phantoms on pure black world tendency just have absurd amounts of HP.

It's really hard to tell due to build variety. It does seem he takes more damage to trigger the fall but I find it's easier to tell if the ankles are fully broken on the original.

Another thing I assume is new from a speedrun I watched, your roll's i-frames can protect you from fire. The current world record run has a bridge run where he uses his roll to avoid fire damage.

Oh wow, game-changer... there is a new ring that lets you move normally in water. Meaning the 5-2 swamp should no longer be such a pain in the ass. Requires pure black world tendency in 3-2.

There's also some new armor sets... Penetrator armor set is behind that door in 1-3 that people couldn't figure out how to open. I guess you have to trade some items with the crow to open it.

Also, in case you haven't heard, Astrea's boss music is not as rad.

Hmm, and yet more stuff I hadn't been aware of until now. One neat thing and one sort of annoying thing IMO.

There is now a "Fractured Mode" which simply flips the entire world horizontally, including your character model. I guess it's just intended to be a different kind of challenge. Haven't tried it yet, myself.

The thing I find annoying that I'm only now discovering is that there are 11 "ceramic coins" scattered throughout the various worlds in Fractured Mode that only show up in either pure white or pure black world tendency, and you need a total of 26 to trade to the crow in order to unlock the door to the new Penetrator armor, meaning you need to collect them across three playthroughs and be carefully manipulating world tendency every time. Dude, I did not need yet another bunch of things tied to world tendency to worry about. It was always the most annoying aspect of this game, I'm really not sure why Bluepoint decided to double down on it.